


Language for the Dead

by meggannn



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Family Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 23:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17192096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggannn/pseuds/meggannn
Summary: On October 31 2024, the Rivera family has gathered at the hacienda for Día de Muertos. Miguel is nowhere to be found.





	Language for the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> I’m neither Mexican nor a Spanish speaker, so please let me know if I’ve made any linguistic or cultural errors in this fic. I did take several liberties with Michoacán geography, my apologies if anything is glaringly wrong.
> 
> Many thanks to Keely and Fran for beta-reading.
> 
>  **Warnings:** This fic contains referenced/offscreen violence and domestic abuse. It is purposefully vague and nonspecific. I didn't tag it because I didn't want to imply that the violence or abuse occurred within the Rivera family, which it doesn't.

#### Héctor

The first clue that something was not right was when Héctor discovered there were no offerings on the graves.

Coco waved him over from the Rivera plot as he hurried through the cemetery, respectfully avoiding gravestones and the other deceased. Cempasúchil flew from his boots, scattering over the grass. She kissed him on the cheek once he’d made his way over.

“The guards aren’t giving you trouble again?”

“Ran into a fan,” Héctor muttered, not wanting to dwell on it. Héctor didn’t mind making conversation with his supporters and admirers — but Día de Muertos was never the time to do it. He looked down now at their bare gravesites. “Did we come to the wrong cemetery?”

“This is us,” Imelda sniffed from two stones over. She was looking down at her empty gravestone as though it had offended her personally — cleaned of twigs and fallen leaves and noticeably bare, compared to the others in the park. “Gifts are always here long before now. Someone must’ve forgot.” 

She spoke calmly, but Héctor knew her well enough to tell that she was bothered; he supposed for the well-remembered, missing gifts were the first dreaded sign that one was being forgotten. He highly doubted they were at risk for that fate, though addressing it seemed like the wrong type of comfort.

Héctor moved past Coco and Julio beside her, squeezed through the twins who were muttering between themselves, and up to Imelda’s side to have a better look at his own gravestone. His being the newest plot, the stone was freshly cut, and the edges were covered in orange and yellow flowers with very generalized, impersonal offerings. Some devoted fans had apparently got here first. A few envelopes and letters, and someone had left a hand-crafted calaca figurine with a tiny clay guitar.

Beside his family’s painfully bare tombstones, guilt seized his chest. He was, of course, well-remembered now — moreso than the rest of the Riveras. That still took some getting used to.

“They might have everything at the hacienda,” Rosita said as she shuffled over. She shuffled over from a collection of stones across the way where she had been buried with her long-forgotten parents. She was holding a small basket of pan de muerta with one hand, and lifting her skirts above her knees with the other. She, too, looked somewhat guiltily at the bare offerings as she realized the situation.

“This is highly irregular,” Imelda sniffed, hurt. “Elena wouldn’t stand for — ”

They were interrupted by a slight commotion a few rows over.

“Out of the way,” a young girl snapped, shoving through several living families, who glared at her as she passed. Héctor was startled to recognize his great-great-granddaughter, Rosa, wearing a stained jacket and a new pair of rectangle-framed glasses. Like her cousin, she had shot up like a weed in her late teenage years, and her oval face had stretched enough to remind him of Imelda’s. Said face was now screwed up in anger. _Dios mío, how old is she now? Twenty-two?_

Her ponytail swung as she hurried over, carrying — Héctor blinked — three straining plastic bags. Orange petals fell from the satchel over her shoulder, scattering like a trail of breadcrumbs leading back out through the cemetery graveyard.

“Estpúido Miguel,” Rosa was snarling, dumping the bags at her feet and unloading her backpack. She shoved her hand in, dumping a handful of petals over each grave with all the gentleness of a tornado blowing through. “The food, then the car, then the gifts, that cabrón, that hijo de — ”

“Language!” Eight dead Riveras snapped at once. Imelda and Victoria looked appalled. It was still a bit of a shock for Héctor to hear young women of this age swearing as they do, but he chalked it up to the changing times; Imelda on the other hand never seemed to get used to it.

Rosa continued onto the consumable offerings, shoving her glasses up her nose as she placed bottles of spirits on each of their sites. “ — See if I help him again.” She paused, then said in surprising English, “That — that _piece of shit_!”

Apparently mollified, she took a deep breath and stared down at the offerings she’d distributed in her fury.

“Oh,” she muttered to herself, switching the bottles: pulque to Óscar, mezcal to Felipe. “Sorry, Tíos.”

“De nada, sweetheart,” one of the twins said fondly.

“Wonder what’s eating her,” the other said.

“Miguel,” Imelda sighed, “what has that boy done now?”

Héctor put an arm around his wife and squeezed her shoulder. He swore he could still feel his long-gone heart warm whenever she leaned into him.

After Rosa had placed and lit the candles, artfully arranged some papel picado that linked around the bottom edge of each grave, she packed up her bags and stuffed them into her pack. Héctor and the others followed her out of the graveyard, back the way she had come.

The fallen petals lit up the cobbled streets like a glowing, neverending carpet: for the dead, the dark winding roads of Santa Cecilia were only illuminated by the bright petals and flickering candlelight in the windows of homes they passed. Héctor knew the path to the Rivera family complex by now, but the sight of familiar papel designs hanging between string-lights around the Rivera Zapatería entrance was never one that he would tire of.

Entering the hacienda, the warm lights and tables of food a beacon against the black night, was always the highlight of his year. Somewhere in the distance, a guitar was playing, and laughter carried from a faraway gathering, perhaps from the mariachis down in the plaza — but here, there was none of the usual music he’d come to associate with the Rivera gatherings.

That was his second clue that something was off: the mood in the hacienda was thick not with welcoming and good humor, but tension.

As Rosa shuffled off to help with the preparations, someone rushed past them at the entrance, followed by a quiet seven-year-old shadow.

“Boys,” Nieta Elena was telling Socorro as she juggled plates of tamales, “are all the same. You must promise me you will never fall for one when you grow up. Untrustworthy, unreliable — ”

“Hey, we’re helping!” Benny — or Manny — one of them said hotly from the well, around which they were pasting papel decorations in a haphazard pattern. 

“Mamá,” Enrique said from across the courtyard, where he was carrying four chairs at once to distribute around the table. “I’m sure there’s a good reason. This is really unlike Miguel — ”

“Is it?” Elena groused. Socorro, hair done up in tiny pigtails, helped her lay out the food, seemingly resigned to whatever life lesson her grandmother was in a mood to teach her today. Smart girl. “Abandoning his family? Running off at the last minute on Día de los Muertos? Sounds familiar to me!”

“Mamá,” Enrique said sharply, “please.” He sounded pained. Héctor couldn’t blame him; his nonexistent heart clenched.

Elena put her hands up in an _I surrender_ gesture. “Bien. Fine. When he comes back I am not cooking anything more. He will eat what’s left.”

Héctor met Imelda’s eyes. She looked worried.

“Niño having trouble again?” Julio muttered.

Coco sighed behind him. “Miguelito…”

As the living family gathered to the table, children sitting on the lower end, Héctor did a headcount. He was halfway through the adults when he realized: Berto, Carmen, Enrique, Luisa, Gloria —

He was curious and somewhat alarmed to notice another missing face among the living: Abel. From his experience over the years and the tales from Imelda and the others, his oldest great-great-grandchild was the strong and silent type, unlikely to draw attention and most likely to be looked over in a crowd of rowdy younger siblings. As if by comparison, Rosa, sitting silently at the middle of the table between the adults and her younger siblings and cousin, moodily stabbed a tamale with a plastic fork and knife.

The Riveras dined. Victoria and Rosita were pleased to find their favorites left for them; they both came out of the ofrenda room with calaveras and sweets, and settled on a large picnic blanket laid on the ground. Óscar and Felipe’s bottles clinked in toast as they hovered over the far side of the table, where the adults were discussing their next trip to the city for a supply pickup, and whether they could make it a family trip to watch the new Iron Man movie, on Elena’s request.

“ — at school, maybe,” Coco was saying. “It’s his first year at the Conservatory. He’s probably busy with schoolwork. And it’s a long drive from the capitol…”

Julio sighed and helped himself to another pan dulce. “Guess we knew this would happen eventually.”

“Julio.” Coco sounded almost stern. “Miguel of everyone knows how important this day is. One day he’ll probably move out of town for good, and we’ll visit him wherever he goes, too.”

Imelda was quietly observing her family with the eagle eye of a matriarch: Héctor knew she was counting plates to make sure everyone was eating enough, watching the kids, undoubtedly worrying over where their oldest tataranietos had run off to. Héctor took initiative.

“Dance with me,” he murmured, taking her hand.

She looked up at him, then glanced to the CD player that was faintly from the other side of the courtyard. Some contemporary song; Héctor didn’t recognize it. Normally Miguel played for them, but this year, someone had apparently loaded it up on a stool as a last-minute Plan B.

“To this?” Her brows crinkled in distaste. “It sounds like a pair of microphones are screaming at each other.”

“It’s what all the kids are listening to these days,” he said. Rolling her eyes, she accepted his hand and let him wind his arm around her waist. They moved as best they could to the rhythm, laughing a bit when it changed abruptly to another, equally confounding song. Héctor found himself worrying less about Miguel and enjoying the tranquility of the moment, the chirp of crickets in the air and pleasant buzz of conversation amongst loved ones.

The player clicked and came to an end of its tracklist, prompting Gloria to rise and change the CD. Imelda released him, smiling gratefully; she looked somewhat more relaxed than before, so Héctor considered his job well done. She went to join the others at the table to partake.

Something wet and slimey touched his hand.

Héctor yelped — and found Dante grinning dopily up at him. The dog cocked his head, eyes wide.

“Dante,” Héctor said quietly. “Where’s your boy?”

The sound of a car engine and tires on gravel crunched behind him. Héctor whipped around as two truck lights pulled up slowly to the entrance of the hacienda.

Elena was the first to rise from the table. “Prepare something for Abel,” she instructed, huffing over to the car, where Abel himself was climbing out of the passenger’s seat.

“Sorry we’re late,” he grunted, pulling out a few bags’ worth of alcohol and sugar skulls with him.

“It’s not you who should be apologizing,” Elena snapped. “Miguel! Out here!”

The figure behind the wheel didn’t move.

 _Chamaco,_ Héctor thought bemusedly, _what the hell is going on?_

Every Rivera had gone quiet: every eye was on the family matriarch and every breath held as she marched silently around to the other side of the truck.

Rosa said from her seat, “Did you guys pick up my new bow?”

Abel glanced as his sister irritably. “No.”

“You said you’d pick it up — ”

“Pick it up yourself, Rosa, I’m not in the mood.”

Tia Carmen interjected sternly. “Both of you, stop. Abel, is everything all right?”

Abel handed his father a bottle of tequila and deposited the rest at the shared buffet. He shoved the plastic bags under the table. “Everything’s fine. I’m going to put these sugar skulls on the ofrenda.” He disappeared into the house without another word.

“Is Miguel in trouble?” Socorro said from the end of the table.

“He’s very late,” Luisa said diplomatically, “and Abuelita is just cross with hi — honey, why aren’t you eating your green beans?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “Dunno. Can I have dessert now?”

“Yeah!” The twins sitting next to her began to chant, breaking the tension of the moment with childish delight. “Dessert! Dessert!”

Imelda met Héctor’s eye again, but Héctor knew what she was about to say before she said it. He nodded and kissed her on the cheek, then left the hacienda, following Elena around to the other side of the truck.

Héctor gaped when he passed over the front of the car. The bumper was dented unevenly and the front of the car was slathered in mud. Large swatches of paint were chipped, scratched as if it had run into something large and lost. Two breaks in the muck, hand-shaped, suggested someone had quickly wiped at the headlights to clear them. The car engine was still rumbling, headlights spilling over the cobblestoned alley. In the shadows, Héctor caught a glimpse of housecat-sized Pepita scampering behind some garbage bags.

“ — cousin had to run to the graveyard to leave the offerings you forgot, and your sister was really looking forward to hearing you sing her song tonight,” Elena was hissing to a stone-silent Miguel in the driver's seat. “You can join us once you’ve thought about your obligations and are ready to apologize to your whole family.”

She slammed the car door shut and stomped back around again to the hacienda. “Brawling,” Héctor heard her mutter, crossing her chest, “on _Día de Muertos_. Dios mío.”

Héctor slowly walked up to the driver’s side window. When he saw his tataranieto’s face clearly through the windshield, it took a moment to recognize the sight of blood. Once his reaction caught up with him, and he sucked in a nonexistent breath.

Miguel’s lip was swollen, split badly on the side; his chin was caked with dried blood. His left eye was swelling in one large bruise that stretched across his cheek. Small pieces of gravel pressed into the grooves of his cheeks implied his face had been shoved — pounded? — into the ground. What looked like another cut was barely visible behind the bangs high up on his forehead, dried blood flaking into his eyebrows. His white shirt was filthy, crinkled. His knuckles clenched on the steering wheel were bloody and swollen. 

Héctor couldn’t stomach the sight of a grandchild like this, but he couldn’t look away. The paternal urge hold and comfort was overwhelming. Instead he leaned his elbows on the edge of the open car window, crossing his arms, and sighed. Miguel didn’t move. “Ah, muchacho…”

Inside the hacienda, the sound of music had started up again, and voices were returning to normal. Imelda and Coco were waiting for him at the entrance, watching him through the open car window with silent worry.

Héctor moved back around the truck to speak to them. “Looks like Miguel got into a fight.”

Imelda’s eyes narrowed. “Unlike him. He’s got a better head on his shoulders. Luisa didn’t raise the boy like _that_.”

Héctor had gathered enough history behind his wife’s vocal opinions to know that she wouldn’t have said that seven years ago. Unbidden, his mouth quirked in a smile before he sobered again.

“I’m betting he wasn’t the one who started it,” Héctor said.

Coco wrapped her shawl tighter around herself and crossed her arms. “He’s going to want to talk to somebody. Whenever he was upset, he’d come to me immediately and rant or get everything out. It doesn’t look like he’s interested in speaking to anyone here though.”

Imelda turned her head sharply back toward the living family. “They’re talking about Miguel,” she said. “I’ll see if I can find out what happened.”

Héctor looked back at the truck.

Miguel said nothing, and made no move to leave the car. Héctor was beginning to wonder if he was going to stay here all night when he finally spoke, and when he did, his voice wavered with the forcibly calm tone of someone who was trying hard not to yell instead.

“If someone is here.” Miguel stopped himself. There was a long pause, and then he suddenly leaned over to the other side of the car, and shoved opened the passenger side door without looking at it. His hand returned to clench the steering wheel. “If you’re really here, then I’m going for a drive. If you can join me, I’d — ” He swallowed. “I don’t know. But it would make me feel better. Even if I have to pretend you’re there.”

Héctor looked back at Imelda. She was standing far enough that he doubted she’d heard what Miguel had said, but she seemed to understand; she made a gentle ‘shoo’ing motion. Coco nodded encouragingly.

Héctor turned back to the truck and climbed in.

* * *

#### Miguel

Abel, the twenty-four-year-old idiot, still couldn’t drive worth a damn, so of course Miguel was the one who’d been stuck speeding to Quiroga last-minute to pick up the sugar skulls and tequila and running favors every other Rivera asked of him that afternoon. And of course he just had to overextend and offered to decorate, leave the graveyard offers that morning, and scatter the petals too, and failing all of that, Mamá Imelda was probably furious with him again this year. That knowledge more than everything else was what made the pit of anxiety weigh in his stomach like lead, because thinking about the rest — Abuelita yelling at him, crashing the car, the feeling of Armando’s fist in his mouth — was too much to process at once, and so he shoved it all into a distant corner of his brain and drove.

Miguel clenched his jaw, chiding himself. That was unfair, blaming his cousin. Abel had every right to be furious at _him_ — not that he had done it for — well, he’d had his reasons, and _they were good ones_ — but —

He stopped to let a group of teenagers cross the street. Their painted faces shone like pale moons as they squinted at him in the headlights. One of them looked curiously at the truck bumper as they passed. He lumbered along, going a very steady fifteen KPM, looking for distractions to calm the pounding of his heart, and finding none. At least the pounding in his head was beginning to calm. He wondered, very distantly, if he might have been concussed. Which would make driving a very bad idea indeed, but he couldn’t bring himself to look or speak to anyone right now: he needed space; he needed time; he needed someone to tell him at least he’d tried; he didn’t know what he needed.

The annual Día de Muertos talent show had attracted a crowd at the plaza. Miguel drove by lazily. There was a trio of mariachi in the gazebo, and with the truck windows still rolled down, he caught familiar lyrics over the chatter of the crowd. A cover of one of Papá Héctor’s old songs.

He kept the truck moving southward, through the plaza and off into the side streets, then up the road behind the hardware store and into the path that eventually lead up the mountain. The buzz of the town faded into the distance, and he flicked on the high beams, lumbering slowly uphill.

The truck bounced a little on the uneven road. He forced himself to stay below twenty KPH on the dirt road, keeping an ear out for the bumper clanking. He didn’t plan to be gone long, but this path to the outlook was quiet during the best of times and was sure to be deserted with everyone in town celebrating the holiday.

Miguel flicked on the radio after about five minutes. It was hard to find a signal out here sometimes, but — he fiddled with the dial and fought with static — he managed to catch a station playing Latin and American pop. Rosa liked this channel. A Colombian artist was singing about losing his heart to a foreign girl who was only staying for the summer.

It was warmer than average for November, so he left the windows rolled down. He drove on, letting the music break the silence of the night. Something about the radio calmed him down, no matter what was on; it spoke to the part of him that craved human connection, that offered emotion without asking him to share his own vulnerabilities. That was for another night — right now, he just needed… he needed…

As the truck climbed, he broke around a ridge and was granted a view of Santa Cecilia winking up at him, with the town of Quiroga aside, both nestled against the bed of the lake. From here, he could barely see the cluster of lights that was the plaza, and a second cluster of orange-red that was the graveyard candles.

Another hour up the mountain was Zirimícuaro, but Miguel parked the car at a naturally-made outlook with a wide break in the sparse trees, careful to stop well away from the ridge. He powered off the car but kept the radio on, turning it low. The radio host wished everyone a happy Día de los Muertos, and on request, cued a song by a local Mexican band.

Miguel rested his forearms over the wheel and gathered his thoughts.

“I,” he started. Stopped. “I’m about to sound damn stupid if nobody’s here. I hope someone was around to hear me, down there.” 

The gentle tune of the radio answered him.

He drummed his fingers on the wheel. “I’m sorry if you aren’t. I forgot to do the petals. I hope you all made your way to the hacienda okay.” His split lip was not happy with him: it stung as he spoke, threatening to break again.

The singer went on about a lost girl and forbidden love.

“Tonight was my fault, man.” Miguel didn’t know why he was talking to nothing. He continued anyway. “I made a stupid call. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it backfired and I just made things worse, because I’m impulsive and reckless, as abuelita loves to remind me.”

Desperate for something to do with his hands, he picked at the peeling leather of the steering wheel.

“I — ” He stopped himself, not sure how to start this story.

_From the beginning, mijo._

He closed his eyes and imagined ever-patient Mamá Coco beside him, smiling at him encouraging, waiting for him to continue. He imagined Mamá Imelda, who for all her sternness, would at least hear him out. He imagined someone beside him who would tell him they would listen and mean it.

“I tried to help a girl out tonight,” Miguel confessed to the empty air. “She’s — we were in the same class together. In our last year she started dating this guy. I knew her boyfriend was no good for a long time, but didn’t do anything. Offer any help. I don’t know why. I was scared. He brags about it all, ‘round town. He — ”

He takes a steady, shaking breath of air to calm his nerves.

“They just finished clearing out de la Cruz’s financial records. There was a huge exposé on it. Just when I think it’s over, they keep discovering more things he’s done. The public knows Papá Héctor was killed now, but we never knew — all the rest of it. Other art thefts, not just song credits. Women paid off with hush money, there were… other disappearances that nobody thought to connect until now.”

That only scratched the surface. It had apparently been a bit of an open secret amongst the industry that the most beloved singer in Mexican history was a complete piece of shit: a thief and murderer, and apparently a blackmailer and known womanizer as well. With other families across the capitol speaking out against him following the publication of the Rivera Letters, the public had not only taken it seriously, but run the investigation and subsequent cultural dialogue about ‘art vs artist’ and ‘attacking a dead man who couldn’t defend himself’ into the ground. In response, journalists country-wide kept the ball rolling by digging up every previously-doubted story in de la Cruz’s songwriting credit history and reevaluated it with the critical lens of handwriting forensics and industry experts.

That Papá Héctor was not de la Cruz’s only victim, just his first, had been a rude awakening. And Miguel supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised — if a man like that could get away with murder over something as small as a songbook at the age of twenty-five, it was hardly inconceivable his crimes would escalate later on in his career. And then de la Cruz’s name had been plastered over every Mexican channel, joining the year of unpleasant revelations that had shaken the Mexican entertainment industry to its core. 

In a fit of anger Miguel’s father had once stormed up from the dinner table, unplugged the television set in the middle of a piece about de la Cruz’s many previously-unknown female “conquests,” and forbade anyone from turning it back on for a month. Miguel hadn’t quite understood back then — his parents had refused to explain the concept of prostitution at the time — but that had been the last nail in the coffin in his former idol’s reputation for a twelve-year-old Miguel still reeling from the events in the Land of the Dead.

Miguel couldn’t stop thinking back to that party at de la Cruz’s mansion, how easily he had accepted Miguel might be his descendant. He couldn’t look at images of his old hero or even hear his name these days without fighting the urge to pull the proverbial plug on the television set. He’d tossed his phone across the room more than once at university whenever his coursework crossed paths with de la Cruz’s work, even studied now through the academic lens that acknowledged — and celebrated — his tartarabuelo for every piece of “original” music in de la Cruz’s early career.

None of this made Miguel feel vindicated. It just made him feel sick.

“Christ,” he said. He covered his eyes with one palm, elbow on the wheel. “I can’t do this. I need something. A sign someone’s here. If not I swear I’ll go right back down and sit through whatever lecture they give me and behave myself for the rest of the night. But I just — need to talk to someone. Please tell me you’re there.” He swallowed. “Anyone.”

Nothing responded. The song winded down and switched to an American song Miguel had heard endlessly back in the university dorm.

A sluggish breeze teased him through the windows. A faint sound accompanied it, nearly indistinguishable; like fabric faintly rustling, a soft breath of air being exhaled.

Miguel dropped his hand.

A very familiar figure was sitting next to him. Translucent, and glowing faintly in the moonlight. Bony elbow propped up against the window, long legs squeezed into the passenger’s side, kneecaps pressed against the glove compartment. That old, patchy straw hat was sitting in his lap. Miguel met his eyes.

“Papá Héctor?”

“In the flesh.” The skeleton grinned toothily.

A pause.

He reached out — and his fingers passed right through Héctor’s shoulder.

Miguel started to laugh. He laughed so hard his sides started to hurt, and his jaw too, and he might have cried a little bit, in between bouts of “Oh my god. Oh my god. You’re okay.”

“Chamaco — ” A faint impression touched his shoulder, a ghostly hand giving comfort. “I’m here. Are you all right?”

“I thought you were gone,” Miguel whispered into his hands. His heart was pounding. “I never knew. I thought if you pulled through, maybe they’d find a way to let me know. A dream. Dante. A note in the goddamn heavens. But nothing came. I didn’t know what to believe. I hoped — I mean, I wanted to think — then after Mamá Coco died, she was your last link, and I — ”

The hand moved from his shoulder to his forehead. It was like air solidified, a peck of faint wind. Héctor could touch him, faintly, but not the other way around. At least he wasn’t cursed again. Was he hallucinating? Still lying on the ground after that last punch dreaming about the exact person he’d been hoping to see again for years?

Héctor’s fingers brushed his bangs; he was clearly trying to look at the dried blood over his brow, but his hair didn’t move. Only now did Miguel realize how he came off: he hadn’t cleaned up before driving back to the hacienda. He probably looked like a wreck. 

“That cut looks serious, kiddo.”

Miguel’s lips quirked. Spoken like a true parent — he wouldn’t imagine Héctor mothering over him. This, at least, was real.

“I’ll live.”

“Sure you will. Humor me.”

Miguel sighed and scrubbed at the dried blood on his forehead and chin. Flakes of it came off in his hand. His breathing was starting to calm. “I have some Neosporin back home.”

“Just want to make sure you’re taken care of.”

“I know. Abuelita’s always saying I need to eat more. I’m thinner than you are now.”

A pause.

“Sorry. Bad joke.”

“I’ve made worse.” Héctor crossed one leg over his knee. Christ, the spirit — ghost — soul — of his great-great-grandfather was lounging next to him in the family’s 1960’s pickup. Beyoncé was playing on the radio.

Miguel itched for something to do with his hands. 

He leaned over to Héctor’s side and opened the glove compartment. He rummaged through old earbud cords, a few empty boxes of Tío Berto’s cigars — aha.

Miguel took the last cigarette from a pack of Pall Malls and his uncle’s old lighter. Out of habitual politeness when smoking in company, he lit it, took a drag, and blew a gust of smoke outside of the window, before he fully processed that his company had no lungs or nose to appreciate the gesture.

Héctor himself said nothing. Whether this was because he had nothing to say or because he was waiting for Miguel to come to his own senses about the dangers of smoking without his interjection — or possibly even because he didn’t know what a modern cigarette looked like — Miguel didn’t know.

“You want to talk it out, chamaco?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly embarrassed about the cigarette for some undefinable reason, he let it hang outside of the car. His eyes were adjusting to the dark now, even with the faint glow that was his great-great-grandfather sitting beside him; he could see further across the town, the tiny lights of cars passing in the distance.

“You like this girl?” Héctor asked gently.

“No,” Miguel said honestly. “Though Abel does. I wasn’t trying to be a hero or anything. I just — saw something escalating as I was driving back home, and I — jumped in. I was so in over my head I didn’t realize until my face was in the ground and his foot was on my head.”

Héctor hissed in sympathy.

Miguel drummed his fingers on the steering wheel again. Brought the cigarette inside and extinguished it in the ashtray. “Don’t tell the others I was smoking?”

“I make no promises. Go on, mijo.”

Miguel sighed. “There’s not much else to it. I think I scared or embarrassed her — Camila. He had his fist in her hair. Then some idiot drives up and picks a fight with her two-meter-tall boyfriend in the middle of the street and gets his ass handed to him. I don’t know. I just — I saw red.”

“Where is she now?”

“She left with him,” Miguel told the steering wheel. “I hardly inspired confidence.”

“Don’t think about that. How did you get home?”

“I had to… I just called Abel to help me with the car. After I drove it into a ditch.”

Héctor sighed, releasing a large gust of nonexistent breath.

“My eye was swollen,” Miguel snapped. “I couldn’t see, I was tired, I was trying to make it back home — ”

“Kiddo,” Héctor said, “I love you so much. You know that, right?”

Miguel quieted.

They fell into silence as he searched for something to say. Nothing came to him. Any excuses felt weak, superfluous.

“How’s your music going?” Héctor asked conversationally.

Miguel sighed, recognizing this tactic but more than willing to latch on to a new topic. “Good,” he said truthfully. “I’m managing a song every other week now. Used to get more done, but school’s taking most of my free time now. I’m working on a campus radio station.”

“You like the work?”

“Sure, I guess. It’s… not what I want to do forever, but you get exposed to more genres. Get to talk to people. It’s a good group of people. They play a lot of student music.”

“Been submitting your own stuff?”

Miguel avoided his eyes. “Been busy.”

“Oh? Who’s hearing those songs you’re writing, then?”

“My roommate, mostly. Unwillingly.” Miguel managed a weak grin. His lip didn’t thank him for it. “I need to reserve some studio time. Right now I’m recording in my bathroom. The sound’s best in there.”

“Your grandmother said something about a song for your sister.”

Miguel winced. “I wrote something for her when she was like, five, to make her go to sleep. She’s never let it go. Never wants me to play anything else.”

Something indefinable passed over Héctor’s face, and he smiled. “Sounds familiar.”

The radio paused for commercials, and the break in background tunes inspired Miguel with a sudden, wild idea.

“Hold on,” he said, and yanked out the family stack of old CDs from the cup holder, where Tío Berto always kept his favorites together with a rubber band. Miguel shuffled through them, and his heart flipped when he saw his own custom-made CD among them. Before he could think about it too much, he shoved his in. He remembered making this back in his friend’s basement during the first month of term, and sending it to his family in a rare peak of artistic pride, weeks before the weight of imposter syndrome and creative peer jealousy had begun to really settle in.

The first chords began to play.

“Not that one,” Miguel said hastily, skipping it.

Héctor raised a brow at him.

“It’s nothing filthy,” Miguel said, scrolling through the next two as well. None of these suddenly seemed good enough to show off. If this was his only chance to impress the person whose opinion he valued most, he should’ve brought the other stuff, but he’d left most of his best work at school. “It’s just — ”

A skeletal hand covered his. Miguel could barely feel it, but his hand stilled nonetheless.

“This one,” Héctor said. “No commentary, no excuses. Let me hear you play, mijo.”

Miguel removed his hand slowly from the dashboard.

 _Track 04_ was _Lights On_. It began slowly, with a lyric Miguel had been inspired by on his first trip to Mexico City when he was fifteen and seen an incredible female acapella group perform at a music festival.

_Can you hear me from down there?_  
_I’ll be there soon, if I'm anywhere_  
_Put a light on_  
_And keep that ribbon in your hair…_

There were eight tracks on the CD. Héctor sat through all the rest, _Ni Modo_ and _Make It Last_ and _Under the River With You,_ in peaceful silence. After Miguel saw his boney foot tapping on the floor halfway through the _Lights On_ chorus, he couldn’t find it in himself to turn it off. Héctor had his head leaned back against the carseat, eyes half-closed, smiling faintly. The CD came to an end, and when Miguel caught his eyes, Héctor looked back and winked at him.

“I’m really proud of you,” his grandfather said. “You know that, right?”

Miguel let out a breath of air he didn’t know he’d been holding. He couldn’t stop staring at Héctor, his twenty-one-year-old tartarabuelo, who had died a century ago, whose life he would never have known, whose friendship and respect mattered more to him than he could ever put to words. That he could have this moment at all, that it was only cruelty and mistakes and accidental luck that made their relationship and reunion possible at all, seemed borderline insanity. He’d doubted himself several times in the past years, questioning if that night had really existed, wondering if there was any way to get a piece of it back, just an inch to take with him, to make it feel real.

Miguel didn’t know how to say any of this, so he didn’t try. He found his voice. “Yeah. I — yeah. Thanks.”

“…A lot of people worry about you, Miguel.”

Somewhat sobered, Miguel swallowed.

“But you did a good thing tonight. Don’t doubt that.”

“Did I?” Elbows on the steering wheel, Miguel sighed into his hands. “I fought a battle that wasn’t mine to fight. Everyone’s always going on about my lack of — _machismo_ and I just thought I should do something worthwhile with it.” He palmed at an eye. The pounding in his head was back. “I forgot my family the one night a year it matters the most. I forgot to leave your offerings in the graveyard — I let you all down.”

“Your intentions were good, chamaco. The best.”

“Abuelita will never understand.”

“I think she’ll surprise you. Try her.”

Miguel scrubbed his face and let his hands fall, forearms hanging over the wheel. “I’ll apologize when I get back. Could you tell everyone else — your side — that I’m sorry?”

“Tell them yourself,” Papá Héctor said fondly. “They’ll understand.”

Miguel began to reply when his jeans began to buzz.

He took his phone from his pocket and blinked at the name, one of the last people he expected to call him tonight. Looking apologetically at his tartarabuelo, he pressed his phone to his ear. “Camila?”

“Hey.” Her tone was neutral.

“Hello,” he said cautiously.

There was a moment of silence.

“Look,” she started, “that was real fucking stupid, Miguel. But — ”

Miguel waited.

“It — you did — nobody’s ever done something stupid like that for me before. I need — just, ugh, do you still have that shitty car tonight?”

“I’m currently driving said shitty car.”

“Great. Look, can you — ”

Shuffling. A breath of air.

“Today was… we were arguing. And it’s over now, and look can you just come pick me up and drop me off at the bus station? I’ll pay you back for the gas.”

Healthy caution prompted him to ask, “If this is a set-up and Armando is just waiting around a corner or something…”

“Armando doesn’t give a shit about you, Miguel. This is just me. If it’s a no, then just say no, and — ”

“I’m saying yes. Where are you?”

She gave him directions and hung up. It wasn’t too far from here; he could pick her up and drop her off on the way back home if he took the long way.

Miguel put his phone away. Héctor was watching something out the window, or maybe listening to the birds chatter. Miguel wondered what it was like for him, being back in the Land of the Living like this.

“Thanks for following me tonight,” he said. “I know you probably look forward to the fiesta at the hacienda every year.”

Héctor looked back at him. “Wouldn’t turn down time with my favorite great-great-grandkid.”

Miguel started the car. The headlights blared to life again. “I thought grandparents aren’t supposed to have favorites.”

Héctor winked again. “Don’t tell anyone.”

They drove in silence back down the side of the mountain, headlights cutting a path through the darkness. The road led him back to the outskirts of town around the old Rodriguez family complex, and then ran parallel to a thin stream that would eventually join the lake. They passed by a few drunk girls with their faces painted, laughing into the night, and crossed over a small bridge and turned a corner around the hardware store. A lone figure with a backpack over her shoulder was standing in the darkness underneath the tejado.

As Miguel rolled up slowly to the street corner and stopped the car, Camila didn’t move. Miguel paused and looked at the ghost sitting next to him. “I was sitting up there for twenty minutes complaining,” he said quickly, realizing he had almost lost his chance to return the favor Héctor had just given him. “And you haven’t said anything about how you’ve been. How’s Mamá Coco? Mamá Imelda? Are you okay? And — ”

Héctor opened his mouth —

“Miguel?”

Camila was peeking out from underneath the dark shadow of the roof. A dull streetlight down the road illuminated her profile. She’d cut her hair since that afternoon; she’d been wearing a ponytail when he last saw her, but now the edges brushed her chin in a bob, mimicking the hairstyles of women Miguel saw in the capitol.

Héctor made an encouraging ‘go on’ gesture. Miguel sighed and left the truck.

“You need anything?” he asked, ambling over.

“Just the ride.”

“You sure?” He offered a hand to take her bag. She rolled her eyes and headed past him to the truck. “Dinner? It’s Día de Muertos, we’ve got food.”

Though Camila said nothing, the way she almost glanced his way at the word ‘dinner’ gave her away.

“I won’t push or anything. But we’ve got space if you need it. Head out tomorrow morning. And if he comes back tonight, he’ll have to fight through the entire Rivera family and my abuelita’s shoe collection to get to you.”

“Christ, Miguel,” she said. “Do they teach you manners from the 1800s down in the capitol or something? What’s your angle here?”

“A ‘no’ would be fine.”

Camila turned on him, looking furious. Her mouth worked. She didn’t say no. She didn’t say yes, either. They were standing in the headlights; Miguel couldn’t see Héctor past the glare

As if coming to a realization, a thick cloud of anger seemed to leave her. She kicked at a loose cobblestone.

“A lot’s been going on,” she said to his shoes. “Things’ve changed since we left school. The store’s not doing good. My parents are furious with me all the time for dumb shit. I’m just, I’ve had enough. And the rest is — I don’t have time to get into it here. And it’s none of your business, frankly. But don’t think I don’t appreciate what you — tried. To do.”

Miguel nodded.

“And tell Abel if this is part some big dumb Rivera plan trying to win me over,” she sniffed, “that he can shove each of his accordion keys up his ass. I know he’s had the hots for me since we were, like, twelve.”

“I’m not here to get you to date Abel,” Miguel said evenly. “I’m pretty sure he’s pissed at me for even bothering you today.” His cousin had, in fact, yelled at him for five full minutes for making things worse for Camila as they pushed the car out of the ditch, and then sat next to him in stony silence the entire ride back to the zapatería.

“Oh.” She suddenly eyed him warily. “ _You_ don’t like me too, do you?”

“Trust me, no.”

Camila looked mock offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We were in the same grade, I had to sit through you singing an off-key rendition of ‘Let It Go’ for the school talent show every year since we were eight. I can’t be interested in someone with shit music taste.”

“Fuck off, _Frozen_ is a classic of our generation! Even if it’s American — ”

“If you _really_ want to watch a good movie-musical,” Miguel began, tamping down on his gut reaction to dive into the many criticisms of Disney’s Latin Spanish musical dubs over the past decade, “then you should listen to — ”

“Oh my god, university has turned you into a fucking music snob.”

“I was always a music snob. I played Villa-Lobos for graduation.”

“Listening to nothing but old 1930’s musicians during your formative years made you a nerd, it didn’t make you a music snob. Your fancy school did that.”

“Look, are you coming to the hacienda or not?”

“Fine!”

Camila was smiling. “Jesus. Fine. You win. You promise not to bring any of this up with your family?”

“Yeah.”

“And you said dinner?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” She removed the strap from her shoulder and pushed the bag into his hands, grinning at him. “Since you offered earlier.”

Miguel rolled his eyes as he turned back to the truck. She was as bad as Rosa. For all he knew, they’d probably been gossipping about how much of a loser he was since seventh grade —

There was nobody sitting in the passenger side.

Miguel felt suddenly cold as Camila climbed up into the seat. He’d wanted to say more to Héctor. Wanted to tell him about Socorro learning piano, ask his opinion on whether he should study abroad in New York or Vienna — how he felt torn between two school internships in classic music or modern Spanish pop, felt torn between the family business and his own ambitions, felt torn between —

A flutter of movement caught his eye. As Camila got settled, he went to put her bag in the truck bed, and discovered the red-and-white sleeve of his old hoodie, which he’d tossed back here earlier this afternoon. One of the sleeves had just flopped over the edge of the truck, apparently without cause or outside force.

He moved around to the rear. There was nothing amiss, no movement and no wind tonight, and yet, he couldn’t stop imagining Papá Héctor reclining against the edge, enjoying the view of the night sky.

He took his jacket back to the front and offered it to her. She rolled her eyes but took it, shoving her arms through to cover the bruises on her shoulders.

“You good?” he asked Camila as he settled into the front.

“I’ll live,” she said, and then after a moment: “Thanks for today, pendejo.”

“Anytime, idiota.”

Miguel thought of Papá Héctor sitting in the back of the truck on the ride back across town, and hoped he was enjoying the view.

* * *

This time, when he pulled up, the party kept going.

“This is how rumors get started,” Camila said, motioning between the two of them. “We better shut that shit down now.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Miguel hopped out of the car and went to the rear to grab her bag. The back of the truck was motionless: if Papá Héctor was still there, Miguel had no way of telling.

Camila met him at the entrance. Miguel handed the bag to her and winced as his sister screamed, “Miguelito!”

The conversations came to a sudden halt as if someone had drained the entire hacienda of all sound.

Painfully aware that every Rivera eye was on him, Miguel said very intelligently, “Ah. Hola.”

Abuelita rose from the end of the table slowly like a falcon preparing for flight, eyes flickering back between him and Camila in hesitation. _This better be an apology or a damn good story_ , that look said.

Over by the well with a whiskey in his hand, Miguel’s father looked slightly fearful for a moment, and Miguel realized painfully that his dad was likely preparing himself for the worst: _Papá, I got a girl pregnant and her novio beat me up_. He almost burst out laughing — and the strange, absurd humor of the moment did something to calm his pounding heart.

Abel and Rosa, the only other two who also knew Camila, were watching her cautiously. The twins were still running and hooting around the yard, chasing each other with calacas over by the picnic blankets. The only noise in the otherwise quiet hacienda. Because, Miguel thought fondly, who gave a shit about family drama when you were twelve and had an imagination?

The joys of having a large familia. He felt an immense urge to just walk over to the table, take some food, climb up to his old hideout, and spend the night up there alone with his guitar. But.

He felt a faint hand on his shoulder, squeezing, and a bolt of unexplainable confidence hit him like lightning.

“Everyone,” he said, “I’m sorry about earlier. This is Camila. She needed some help. Things’re settled now. But if it’s all right, can we spare some room tonight?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Hola, chula,” Tía Carmen said kindly, surprising everyone. “¿Estás bien?”

Camila looked embarrassed. “Hola, Doña. Sí.”

Miguel suddenly remembered — Tía Carmen helped the teachers out with after-school activities sometimes down in the schoolyard. She’d probably seen every kid in his year there on a regular basis, except him, because he always ran right home to noodle around on the guitar after class got out.

“We’ve got plenty of food left,” Tía Gloria said, beginning to prepare a plate. “You like chicken or pork?”

“Mi- _guel_ ,” a very impatient voice sing-songed. “You’re FINALLY here.”

Miguel turned to Socorro, who was sitting at the end of the table coloring something. “How are you doing, nenita?”

“I’m good.” She grinned. “Your face looks bad but Abel said you’d be okay. Are you in trouble?”

“I sure hope not. It depends on if abuelita forgives me.”

“Your abuelita is only upset her grandson missed dinner with his family.” His grandmother tutted over. She put a hand on Miguel’s face gently, sighing and looking at him with sympathy. “Abel told everyone what happened,” she said quietly. “You look in pain, mijo. ¿Estás bien?”

“‘Stoy bien,” Miguel muttered.

Abuelita peppered his sore face with kisses — he knew from experience not to object — and then opened her arms wide to embrace Camila. “Ven acá, pobrecita.”

“Doña, please. I’m only here to annoy Miguel.” Camila caught his eye over Abuelita’s shoulder and grinned. “I heard he got kicked out of his film class in university when he wouldn’t stop correcting the textbook about the golden age of Mexican cinema.”

“Textbooks make mistakes,” Miguel protested, but he was drowned out by the sound of the entire family having a laugh at his expense. Miguel rolled his eyes, privately relieved the worst part of the night was over.

“Mi- _guel_.” Socorro’s voice cut through the chatter.

“Mija, Miguel’s had a long day,” his mother said, but Miguel shook his head at his mother.

“It’s fine. I’m getting my guitar.”

As he left Camila’s side, his father clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a very warm look as he passed. “Let me have a look at that cut, mijo.”

“It looks worse than it is, Papá. Most of it’s healed.”

“Yes, but you look like you got in a fight with an SUV and lost. Let your old man worry for a minute.”

Conceding defeat, Miguel followed him into the house, where his father rummaged around in the bathroom for a balm and a clean cloth. They moved into the ofrenda room for better lighting as his papá began to put ointment on the cuts and clear off some of the loose gravel still caught in his hair.

“Mm,” his father said. “You were right. This isn’t that bad. The way Abel talked, I thought you’d come back to us missing an eye.”

“He still pissed at me?”

“I think he was angry at the situation, not at you.” He thumbed the bruise over Miguel’s left eye. “I’ll get you a cold pack. Can you see okay?”

“Yeah. Just stings when I touch it.”

“Then don’t touch it, gordito.”

“Papá.”

His father laughed and left the room for the kitchen.

Chatter and laughter was starting to rise again outside. Miguel, meanwhile, was drawn to the ofrenda. He’d forgotten to lay his offerings out this year, but it looked like someone — maybe Abel — had him covered. He’d have to remember to thank his cousin for coming to collect him across town and pushing the car out of the ditch when he couldn’t do it himself.

Miguel thumbed Mamá Coco’s photograph, then Tía Rosita’s, Tía Victoria’s, and everyone’s, ending with Mamá Imelda’s and Papá Héctor’s last. Ran his finger over the old tear he and Abuelita had carefully taped over with Scotch on the dining room table all those years ago.

“Thanks, Papá Héctor,” he said quietly, and his eyes were suddenly hot and wet. “Miss you all.”

The picture didn’t reply, but it hardly made a difference. Miguel knew his family heard him when it mattered.

When his dad came back into the room carrying a cold pack and his guitar, Miguel had wiped his face dry, prepared to blame the traces of tears on the bruise. But his father said nothing, just placed a cold pack to his face, which felt heavenly, and put his hands on his shoulders.

“You know you make me proud, mijo.”

“I know.”

“Okay.” His father sighed, and — surprising him — kissed him on the forehead. “Come on, then, before your sister comes looking for you. We’ve all been waiting for our annual Miguel performance.”

“That’s why I sent you guys some CDs, so you wouldn’t have to keep bothering me over Skype every time Socorro wanted me to sing her song.”

“Nothing like a live performance, niño. Let me hear my son live, before you run off to become a famous singer in Mexico City and New York and London and never speak to us again.”

Miguel recoiled automatically. “Don’t joke, Papá.”

His father embraced him with one arm tightly as they walked out of the ofrenda room together.

Socorro was already waiting crossed-legged on her own picnic blanket in front of the well, where Miguel usually played. Camila was seated at the table between Abel and Tía Gloria, engaged in conversation with Rosa, and looked well.

Miguel plopped down and strummed his guitar. His guitar was a custom-made collaboration between him and the owner of an instrument shop down at the plaza: polished black with a white trim, and carved patterns around the rosette. That the designs were patterned off of his memories of Papá Héctor’s calavera petals, well. Nobody needed to know.

“Any requests?” he asked Socorro, playing dumb. He knew she wanted to hear —

“‘Maybe Sunday’! It’s my favorite.”

“Hm.” Miguel thought about it for an exaggerated second. “I thought ‘Time of the Year’ was your favorite-favorite.”

“No, ‘Recuérdame’ is my favorite-favorite.”

“Well,” Miguel said fairly, “I can’t compete with that one. But you know.” He leaned forward in confidence. “I’ve got another song I’m writing for you. It’s called ‘Conversations with My Sister.’ It’s about how you steal all my picks and hide them around the house, and how you once smeared shoe polish over my guitar, and how you’re the most annoying little sister ever.” He strummed aimlessly.

“No! Miguel!”

“Yes, Socorro!”

“Miguel,” his mamá said.

“Híjole, fine. ‘Maybe Sunday’ it is. Help me with the lyrics?”

As Miguel played and Socorro began singing a seven-year-old off-key version of her own lullaby, Miguel decided not to share the real version of ‘Conversations with My Sister,’ a song he had been working on since she learned how to play ‘Recuérdame’ together with him. It could wait for later, when he was ready to share, and he knew she’d understand when the time came.


End file.
